


His Darkness

by NekomimiToree



Category: MapleStory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 05:27:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8832196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekomimiToree/pseuds/NekomimiToree
Summary: Most people seem to think that he was at first light before he went to darkness. But the real story is a little bit more and a little bit different from what we were led to believe.A reinterpretation of our favorite villain. AU.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written in two hours. My second drabble, I guess ?.?
> 
> Will import to ffnet if I ever decide to edit this, I guess ?.?
> 
> Comment if you'd like, I guess :)

He wasn't always the kind of person who believed that in order to better the world, first, the lesser people had to be removed. His parents were pro-Light, and a supporter of equality in Ariant. As a child, he was taught the importance of wisdom and he was cultured with tragic theater and stoic philosophy. The words in these books taught him that all people are fallible, but he celebrated this aspect of life as he would any other. He only had to open the window to the view of his homely garden perched squarely besides the yard of his un-fenced neighbor's to see that the world is bounded by things, and logic, and mathematical perfection.

He loved someone as well, but that played a small role in his life.

And as much as he loved life and people, the generation of his birth was fraught with turmoil. Two nations, each backed by divine powers, were at war with another. Neither one would back out, but neither was willing to go for the nuclear option of ruining the other. And so the only solution was to send out champions who could claim the powers bestowed in El Nath and Leafre and bolster their military. The protagonist of this story volunteered as part of the group, partially out of duty to his people, and partially out of the love that played a small role in his life.

The journey he was to set out on was encased with fire. Sometimes it was only ash which covered his foot and filled his lungs. But other times, the fire was severe. It leaped at his skin, carving hidden, but salient wounds. It even leaped all the way into his bones so that it would hurt whenever he walked. And as his party continued onto the journey, his party at times shrunk and at times grew.

They done a lot of good for a lot of people in their quest. And because they all had aspirations of a better world, every loss was unforgettable. But this they that he started out with fractured like petals sinking into wet mud.

At the ship in Orbis, he decided he had to make the rest of his journey alone. It was more comforting that way. And besides, he was only two or three steps away from achieving the aim of his quest.

And when he was about to pick up the feather of a slain mythical creature in Leafre's forest, he received the news that one of the two nations had collapsed. It was not his own and for that he had to be nothing but thankful. But the quest had changed him. He could not exactly explain his state to anyone. He had experienced loss but had accepted it as inevitable to his quest. He had returned to find his love taken but it was only a small role in his life. He turned to his parents bookshelves who had died before he went to his quest and so had no affect to his current state.

But despite the comforts of wisdom, his mind at night only focused on nightmares. They were vivid, persistent things. Sometimes his eyes would open to a window full of stars and the peace settled him only for the flames to strike him again. All he could see was fire. It burned through the window during the morning blue. Eventually, he found cooked food unbearable.

He turned to creation as his outlet. He loved stories because of the beloved fallibility of his favorite characters. And he would love to share his love all at once with the world so that they too can love as he does. But the fact of that matter is that despite being a fantastic reader, and an even greater champion, he was never meant for writer. He was never meant for giving up either. To perfect his craft, he learned and learned through studying the craft of other. And around that time, he happened upon the books of Darmoor. The nature of the books, the demonizing of lesser people, disgusted him. But Darmoor knew a thing or two about people and so he was a champion of lies, rhetoric, and persuasiveness. He was powerful too. Darmoor could readily create his own reality, and sequester readers into it. The protagonist of this story did not notice such things. Darmoor was simply a gifted writer who tragically used his craftsmanship for an agenda of evil.

After years of learning and crafting, he found himself startled with joy despite his meager income. There was a marriage too and a child whose bookshelves are filled with toys, love, and tragic theater. War was still going on. His nation was meddling in the Ariant affairs. But all in all, he had learned that the world had never known permanent peace. War was an inevitability. The important thing was that it was not part of his life anymore.

But if this is the end of this man's story, it would not be worth telling.

On a fateful September day, a pair of airships threw themselves into Ludibrium's towers. I could never understand the chaos that man must have felt because I was born after that September. Did he fear that the world he left behind was coming to him in the most intimate ways? Did he regret not completing the quest that would have enabled him to stop this tragedy? From all that I can gather, he was at the site of the rubble, picking out boulders as the ashen remains settle. Ash, you see, are minute and can take days before they settle into dust. This ash not only composed of the plastic of the tower's materials and the metal and wood of the ships. When the reactor tube snapped at impact, the mixing of the magic and chemicals created a combustion so severe that even skin and bone turned to ash.

The weight of the remains as he lifted those boulders must have nearly crushed his fingers. But still he dug and dug, not stopping even as his hands started to bleed. Because he loved people. Because at that moment, being a writer with a meager income, it was the only thing he could do.

That day changed him. He wanted to blame someone but he could not bring himself to blame people. It was true that the Ariant affair had created and armed many violent groups. But with the way his nation had been conducting things, it was only a matter of time before there was a breed of people who would willingly turn others into ash. The vivid, persistent things returned, only stronger. And so he set out to blame those in power, those leaders who probably never learned a thing about love from tragic comedy and stoic philosophy.

But this is not yet the time for him to turn to darkness. He recognized his hate, and he knew he was fallible. He turned to his work, but the pen was heavy, the ink wetter, and the words a little too mellow for these melancholic times. The meager income dried. And so did the beer. He grew violent, frustrated. His wife said a demon took hold of him because he had never been like this before. She never understood his nightmares. He never talked about them. And the truth was, he probably never wanted to confront them, and definitely not to his wife. Eventually, even his family dried.

Alone and penniless, he wandered to the same Ludibrium that seven years ago had been smacked by a great catastrophe. A great economic crash had hit the earth at the time, but he still saw two types of people at Ludibium's square. There was the lavishness and wastefulness of the kings whose wealth only seemed to have grew by the crash. And then there was his kind, the destitute, the ones who were ruined and shunned away from the rich, public space. For the first time in his life, he felt impassioned and compelled. He found a pen and scrap papers and wrote according to his heart's wishes. It wasn't a craft to escape the burning memories or a few gold pieces. It was a craft that truly represented him, his love for life, his learnings, and his frustrations. It was a beautiful work, and it got him attention and a job as a writer.

Despite that, it should be obvious that material wealth meant little to our protagonist. He read and learned and loved but as he learned, he started to discover that the new generation of people do not remember that fateful September. They are concerned with the little things. They cry in the most pedantic ways about being inclusive to the migrants fleeing the terrible land of Ariant. But the truth was, these very people who his nation decided to shelter were the very ones who was able to hijack those airships. And since then, more and more of these people had peppered his nation and some of them had done some truly atrocious things. And his very nation, to appease these pedantic people would continue to shelter these migrants.

It was a shock to him. He remembered a time when his nation dared to go to war with a divine power. Why is his country so weak, so corrupted as to exploits its people and forsake their lives? And it was a shock to him that this new generation did not love the way he loved and would only spit at his love for his people. As the decade turns, the attention of his novels only brought on the ire of this new generation, this wave of self-centered, weak-willed, weak-minded pussies. They only keep on crying and his nation only keeps on giving to these people who deserved nothing, who had not gone to battle, who had not suffered the way he did. Where was his justice when he lost his quest, his love, his family, his hopes, and his job? Was he meant to only be a casualty, an outcast in an inherently loveless world? Was the final solution for him to be forgotten and his toils for his nation wasted?

At a time about ten years after the fateful September, our protagonist left for darkness and discarded his light. Of course, there is this thought that he was never meant for light in the first place as he seemed always covered by darkness. But we know for a fact that this light existed because of how radiantly it still glowed. With something so powerful, where has it been his whole life? Why did it not stop him from turning to darkness? These are questions that are difficult to answer because there is very little known about this man after this. And that is because this man's story still continues to this day. What is known is that since he emerged from the darkness, he gathered a group of people around him who would fight his wars and do his bidding. He had read Darmoor so he knew the right word. They were powerful words because they created a reality that was hard to dismiss. It was true that Aria did had illicit relations with a criminal of unknown loyalties. And it was equally true that the queen of elves was spoiled and beautiful and that somehow vindicated her. And finally, it was true that the military of Victoria Island would kill according to a corrupted system that told them how much a certain person's head was worth.

Still, we must remember that this man was not the hero of the story. He was not the tortured protagonist who had fallen from grace due to tragedy. Because, people are like elements. There is light and darkness and fire. But there is also poison, ice, and lightning. Each one of those has their own stories to tell. And we might never truly know why he turned to darkness.


End file.
